When Chinese Premier Xi Jinping visited Auckland last November he joined New Zealand PM John Key to witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Huawei and Spark.

The agreement will see the world’s largest telecommunications equipment company use its massive research and development resources to tailor mobile technologies for the New Zealand carrier.

Spark and Huawei were already working together. In 2013 the two formed a Joint Innovation Programme, or JIP, which led to the world’s first commercial trial of 4G, fourth generation, mobile telecommunications using the 700MHz spectrum.